


Years

by Melodic



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-03 22:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10976739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melodic/pseuds/Melodic
Summary: You are not the young woman you see in the mirror, Lucretia.she thought to herself.You are old. You are all so old now.But every year the same girl in the reflection looked back at her, unmoving, unblemished, unchanged.





	Years

Whenever Lucretia got some sort of scrape or scar from her journeys on the starblaster, she watched it. Cherished it, almost. She checked to make sure it was still there, and watched it heal, until the day the hunger came. Then, of course, it was gone, as if it had never been. 

She cut her hair many times, but it never lasted. Once, she tripped and broke her ankle. Though Merle healed it quickly, it did not regain its full range of movement. When the world ended again, and she was once again as spry as ever, she found herself disappointed. 

The world kept ending, and every time it did it gave her everything back. The end of the world should have more meaning than that; death should leave a mark. Something, anything, to show for what she had lived and not lived through.

 _You are not the young woman you see in the mirror, Lucretia._ she thought to herself. _You are old. You are all so old now._ But every year the same girl in the reflection looked back at her, unmoving, unblemished, unchanged. 

She read her journals, over and over. When they realized they could keep objects, she tried to take one thing from every plane. A seashell, a piece of metal scrap, a strange plant, even just a stone. When nothing is permanent everything starts to feel a little like a dream. Something to touch made it real, kept her grounded. She knew that every single world had really existed, and continued to have existed as long as everyone else remembered it too, as long as she had it all written here, as long as the strange mementos remained on her shelf.

Soon though, everyone but her forgot, and she really could pretend it was a dream if she really wanted to. She kept her journals and her seashells anyway. Her reflection did not change.

\--

"Wow, that's a lot of years, Lucretia. We can do the penalty, if you want." Cam said, concerned.

The impeccably dressed liches pretending to be elves leaned against their little wheel, with its hand pointed squarely at the clock symbol, grinning.

"No," said Lucretia, looking Edward right in the eye. "I'll give them up."

"Here we go then!" said Lydia, and Lucretia felt the youth leave her bones as her hands began to wrinkle and her hair turned to gray, and the elves that were not elves laughed terrible laughs.

"Aw, Lucretia, y'know it doesn't even look that bad and-oh, god, are you crying? No, it's fine, you're gonna be fi-" Cam tried helplessly to comfort her, not understanding.

He couldn't possibly understand how happy she really was.


End file.
